.243Win Mtn Rifle Report

This little rifle is the most accurate rifle I have owned. Its kilt more deer than any of my other rifles. Mostly CA deer since that's a local tag for me and the deer are about the size of a Doberman Pincsher.

It has shot 1/4" groups when it was new. Now its starting to open up a little. It must have thousands of rounds thru it. I don't really keep track. This rifle has a thin littl 22" long barrel and weighs about 6.5lbs. Its killed Couse deer in AZ, Mule Deer in CA, and Antelope in WY. Since it is so light and compact it is my go to gun for any kind of rough country. For this reason the rifle has had a rough life. It has experienced the unpleasant reality of gravity on more than one occasion. Like the time that I decided to jump off a 30 foot embankment and sink my heels into the soft earth half way down and decelerate before I touched bottom. Do you guys know how dry CA is. Well the soft embankment turned out to be hard as cement and my heels simply bounced off and went flying out in thin air. I braced myself with my hands behind me and when I did, the butt stock of the rifle snapped like a twig when it made contact with the so called soft earth bank.
When I got home I epoxied it together and its killed lots more deer since then. Its been in a few other unfortunate accidents, but its managed to keep killin pretty regularly.

Lately though, it groups seem to be widening as shown by the pics below.
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Action and cracks
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Groups when New
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Starting to open up
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Opening more
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All in all this is a fantastic little rifle. Remington does not chamber their mountain rifle in .243Win any more from what I can tell. That's too bad as this rifle looks very handsome in the wood stock and is great for packing in rugged country.
Since the barrel is starting to lose its accracy, I plan to re-barrel it soon. I have two other projects in front of this one. However, I think this little gun is deserving of a new stock. Anybody out there have a light weight composite stock that would fit a thin barreled short action Remington, please let me know if you would be interested in selling. I think some maintenance is in order.

victor,
Your lucky it was only your stock that broke on that cruise down the embankment.
I have a friend who has a mnt. rifle I load for in .270, it is the best shooting 270 I have ever seen. It took less than 20 rounds to find a load for it. It also shoots 1/4" at 100. If he ever sells it its mine. They are sweet little rifles for use in Pa woods.
I had heard that the earlier made mtn. rifles all came thru the custom shop and got that little extra attention during assembly.

I didn't know about the custom shop assembly of these little rifles. Maybe that is why is shoots so well. I purchased mine around 1986.
It's funny that you should mention that it took 10 min. to find a load for your friends .270 Mtn. rifle.
The very first load I tried was, IMR4350-42.0 gr. with a 100gr Nosler bullet and it consistently gave me the .25" groups. How lucky is that. I have been shooting that same load for many years now. No need to change. But recently I have tried some lighter bullets in the 70gr variety for coyotes and it seems to group them well. But once I get a new barrel and stock for it, I will just stick to a 100gr bullet. Its really the perfect size for this gun.

All you may need to do is chase the throat.What load have you been shooting ? Do you know your max oal for that bullet?

There are some guys nhere that can give you some good info that may keep you from rebarrelling and get that original accuracy back . Would'nt that be cool! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]